


When The Sun Sleeps

by Moron1



Category: LOONA (Korea Band)
Genre: 1/3 are superheroes, Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Angst, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Implied/Referenced Torture, Major Character Injury, Major Character Undeath, Major character death - Freeform, Robots, Supervillains, odd eye circle are vigilantes, yyxy are supervillains (kinda)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2019-09-24 00:49:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 8,795
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17090930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Moron1/pseuds/Moron1
Summary: The villainous group known only as Eden is hell-bent on toppling governments and committing atrocities for the benefit of their agency. In reality, they're actually four girls trained and broken into weapons. Will they survive long enough to be able to escape and find the freedom that they've so long lacked?Don't worry, it's actually a romance.





	1. forever in your arms

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1st rpf work and also most serious one as of yet, so buckle up cause y'all are in for either a wild ride or a barely comprehensible one.

Sooyoung woke to an alarm blaring, the same as she had all her life. She didn’t even groan anymore, having lost the ability to pretend that anything about her life was even remotely normal. The electronic handcuffs that shackled her right wrist to the bed helped ground her in reality.

She heard the rustling of the other girls in the room getting up and began to do so herself. If they weren’t up and dressed by the time the alarm stopped, they’d face the consequences. And those were never fun.

The handcuffs clicked off with hardly a noise and Sooyoung stood up, only sparing a moment to rub her wrist before pulling on the plain black jumpsuit that all of the members of the Eden Project wore. Ha, members. As if any of them had any choice in being born and raised as weapons, made into expert killing machines for the use of their esteemed Headmistress.

They had all committed atrocities for the program, the Headmistress’s prized pupils especially. And within that group, the star. Ha Sooyoung, codename Yves. 

She learned to kill at the same time that she learned hangul.

Looking at the other girls that had already instinctively put themselves into a perfectly straight line for inspection, her mouth curved into a bittersweet smile.

At least she had them to keep her relatively sane.

Especially her girlfriend.

Viian.

Sure, she was friends with Chaewon, Hyejoo, and Jiwoo, but Vivi was the only one who really got her, the only one who was just as jaded about the program as she was, who plotted with her to leave the place entirely and never come back.

Settle down. Have a family together.

The others had never really been out of the compound, not outside of missions and battles in which they were heavily supervised and punished if their eyes strayed from their target or assignment.

But Sooyoung and Viian had.

They snuck out at night, Vivi hacking the handcuffs and the cameras, and ran away. Wandering for hours, exploring the bright and shining buildings, the filthy alleyways, trying new food and doing all the things that they could in the wee hours of the night that they could sneak away.

At one point, they found a small rollerskating rink that was open 24 hours.

That night was the first time that Vivi told her she loved her.

They went back as often as they could, but still made time to explore and do other things that didn’t require dipping into the small pile of cash they had saved up from missions and things.

Sooyoung was almost lost in her reminiscing when the inspector barged in. She steeled her gaze and looked down subserviently. That was what was expected.

The inspector walked down the row slowly, plucking at sleeves, forcing open mouths, and checking shoes. They were nearly done when all of a sudden, the only good part of Sooyoung’s life was ruined. 

They had been careless the night before, too caught up in each other and too cocky to remember to properly wipe their shoes down. Sooyoung’s had passed a cursory inspection, but Viian had missed something important. 

A tiny but brightly colored spot of gum had stuck to her sole, something that couldn’t be found anywhere on the grounds of the compound. 

They dragged Viian away, thrashing and screaming, but Sooyoung couldn’t move. Couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t save the only thing in her life that made it worthwhile.

They made an example of her.

_This is what happens to those who try to leave._

Killed her in a program-wide assembly and dumped the body in some undisclosed location.

And Sooyoung couldn’t even cry out of fear that the same would happen to her.

She was trapped.

And her brain kept showing her images of Vivi, snippets of conversations they’d had, the memory of Vivi’s lips on hers.

And Sooyoung had never actually told Vivi that she loved her.

She told her “I feel the same!” and even “You’re the only thing I treasure in life.”, had even talked about their future together, but she had never actually uttered those three little words. And now it was too late.

Sooyoung began to drift through life. It was routine by that point, but she was slower to respond, talked to the others less. They noticed her distance, and while Hyejoo and Chaewon let it slide, assuming that it was just grief and it would pass, Jiwoo tried her best to comfort Sooyoung.

She left apples for her, under the blankets of her bed, underneath the helmet of her weapons training gear. All hidden from their instructors and inspectors, and all likely stolen from the cafeteria.

Sooyoung ignored them. 

She ignored everything, instead turning over some of the last words that Vivi had said to her.

_Let’s be free, Sooyoung._

She’d never been truly free in her life. Born with the serum developed to give her powers already coursing through her veins, beaten and broken until the program was satisfied. Even her nightly excursions with Vivi had a time limit to them.

Sooyoung had watched Vivi break the cuffs and loop footage on the camera so often that she could theoretically do it herself. She had never been as good with computers as Vivi was, but she figured that leaving wouldn’t be overly hard.

The hard part would be stealing the money, food, and falsified records necessary to survive in the outside world.

It was bound to be a long game, so she started immediately.

She kept all of the fake IDs and papers from a mission, including all of the others as to not be as suspicious, and took the beating that she got for ‘losing’ them as gracefully as she could muster.

She hacked into the financials and skimmed bits off the top, putting it all in a bank account that she and Viian had set up for the future.

A future that would now never happen.

_I’ll be free for you, Vivi._

As she plotted, Sooyoung began to notice that Jiwoo had slowly stopped bringing her apples. She felt sad for a moment but quickly got over it. It was none of her business if Jiwoo wanted to stop.

And that’s the way things went, until she accidentally caught Jiwoo sneaking out of the cafeteria with a container of strawberries as she was leaving the weaponry room with a new blade. For emergencies.

The two girls froze, twin expressions of shock and fear flashing across their faces.

Jiwoo opened her mouth to speak, but Sooyoung quickly held a finger in front of her mouth. She signed a quick don’t talk, follow me at Jiwoo, beckoning her to follow.

Sooyoung led her to a half-hidden alcove where they could safely slip outside past the alarms.

As soon as they were in the clear and far enough away to not be overheard, Sooyoung asked, “So, what were you doing out?”

“Getting strawberries! They’re my favorite. What were you doing?” Jiwoo responded readily, surprising Sooyoung.

“I didn’t know that you’d even eaten them before. They save those for the administration and staff, right?” She questioned, handily ignoring the latter part of Jiwoo’s response.

Jiwoo shrugged a bit. “When I was getting those apples for you, I sampled a lot of things. I wish I could have more, but I can only sneak some out once a week or they get suspicious,” she said, “I wish I could get an unlimited supply of them. Like a… Like a supermarket!”

Sooyoung smiled at that. “That’s not really how supermarkets work, but that would be nice.”

“You mean… you’ve been to a supermarket before?” Jiwoo’s mouth dropped open slightly, “You and Viian actually left that far?”

Sooyoung started at that, shoulders stiffening involuntarily both at the reminder of Vivi and the implications of Jiwoo’s statement.

“You knew that Vivi and I left the compound?”

“Well duh, it’s not like any of us are heavy sleepers. That’s how I knew how to work the cameras and handcuffs and stuff. We just didn’t know that you two actually, like, went places.”

“We?” Sooyoung raised her eyebrows.

Jiwoo at least looked somewhat sheepish, if only for a second. “Me n’ Chaewon.”

“Sure, okay. Vivi and I… we were going to leave.”

“Leave where?” Jiwoo asked, head tilting.

“The compound, this place, the country maybe?” Sooyoung said bitterly, “We were going to buy a house. Adopt kids. Have a family.”

Jiwoo’s eyes went round and her lower lip trembled slightly.

“I’m still going to leave.”

At that proclamation, Jiwoo was shocked out of almost crying and instead went back to gaping like a fish. Sooyoung would find it funny if she wasn’t so dead serious about it. 

“You mean like, soon?”

“Yes. That’s why I was gathering some weapons.” Sooyoung declared, steel in her tone, “When I leave, they’re never taking me back. I’ll kill them all before then. Or just kill myself. At least I’d be with Vivi that way. So yeah, I’m leaving.”

“Take me with you.”

“Excuse me?”

“You’re leaving, right? Take me with you when you leave.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel bad for writing rpf because i'm disappointing @lunaaltare on tumblr but i wanted to write this so i did
> 
> if you like danganronpa and naruto and shit follow me @lesbiankorekiyo on tumblr
> 
> if you want a mess but something that i reblog shit to a lot follow me @moronthefirst also u can shout at me to update there


	2. full of little secrets

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan moves forwards.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> writing jiwoo is fun but i'm bad at it.

Jiwoo sat in silence, incapable of rescinding her statement or trying to convince Sooyoung that it was a good idea.

She hadn’t meant to just break out with something like that, but she couldn’t take it back one she had said it. Twice.

Eden was all she knew, but she had always wanted more. Wanted to see new things, meet people that she could talk to in more than quick snatches of conversation when the lights were out or between sparring sessions.

And she was willing to follow Ha Sooyoung to the ends of the earth.

Surprisingly, Sooyoung’s only response was a surprised, “I- okay.”, most likely out of shock more than actual dedication towards the idea. 

So Jiwoo just had to make sure that Sooyoung knew how dedicated she could be.

Sooyoung had mainly made plans revolving around money and a plan of escape, and so Jiwoo covered the gaps.

Cell phones, cheap and fairly outdated, but enough to keep from arising suspicion. It was 2018, everyone has a cell phone.

Food to last them some time, a mixture of canned goods and field rations, with enough dry goods, spices, and oil to make things palatable.

Jiwoo snuck out one night, out into a world she had hardly seen. 

She started walking towards a 24-hour supermarket at one point, lured in by the lights and the view of so much food, so readily on display and fresh, but forced herself to remember what she came there for.

She stole a newspaper from a less-than-well secured stand, and flipped to the classifieds, marking out a few prospects. Fairly cheap rent, looking for student-aged females to rent a room out to.

She noted down the prices and numbers attached to call at some point that wasn’t one in the morning. Jiwoo stashed the paper in the small hidey-hole that she had made to keep her stuff safe and retreated back to her bed, resetting the handcuffs around her wrist.

In the meantime, she saw Sooyoung get called into the headmistresses office, which would have given her a panic attack had she not been trained out of those. Luckily it was just to give the team another mission, but the whole sneaking around really did a number on her blood pressure.

They suited up in their combat suits, sleek and formfitting, customized only due to their status as teacher’s pets.

The suits were predominantly black, with small accents of the colors that had been picked as theirs. They were stylized after their respective animals, with small details like their masks and occasionally headpieces reflecting that.

Sooyoung had functional feathers on her outfit, which were actually carbon fiber throwing knives, and a stylized headpiece reminiscent of swan lake that the headmistress commissioned for her favorite black swan.

Hyejoo had the claws, ears, and tail of a wolf, the former of which she used with deadly precision.

Chaewon’s butterfly theme shone through with the branching wing pattern on her legs, traced with Eden Green, a color that never failed to amuse those with a darker sense of humor. Which meant not Jiwoo.

Jiwoo’s own outfit was accented in pink and penguin themed.

That’s all.

The mission should have been simple, a smash and grab from some laboratory. But those damn ‘heroes’ just had to get in the way again. 

Jiwoo didn’t like hurting them, but if she was seen as hesitating she might get whipped again and not giving them some bruises wasn’t worth that.

The heroes they faced were the especially good ones too. Jiwoo preferred to fight against Odd Eye Circle, who tended to be more sympathetic towards what they likely assumed was their chosen career, being vigilantes themselves and at least partially against the law.

1/3 were a different story. It wasn’t just that they were ridiculously good people, but they also got really cute costumes too! Jiwoo almost wished that she was on their team, with the bright white and the pinks and the yellow! And their animal concepts were all super cute animals as well.

At least Jiwoo had a penguin concept. She wouldn’t be able to pull off something as dark as a wolf or elegant as a swan.

1/3’s leader, known only as Leader, stepped forward with the command to drop the chemicals that they were holding.

Jiwoo sneaked a look to make sure it actually was chemicals that she was holding, as she hadn’t really been paying attention.

They were, but that just confused her more. “I’m not good at chemistry, but aren’t these, kinda volatile? If we drop them and they break, something might explode, y’know.”

The leader actually paused for a moment to contemplate that, and so Jiwoo booked it out of there as soon as possible, getting herself and the objective safe and letting the others deal with fighting people.

Jiwoo could fight if she wanted, but she preferred to pick people off from a distance rather than start brawling. That was more Hyejoo’s specialty.

Instead, Jiwoo acted as a sniper more often than not. She was sent out on the second most missions after Sooyoung due to the fact that sniping is less mess and fuss than close-range combat is.

She got used to it.

Or rather, she trained herself out of flinching every time she saw brain matter spray out of the back of someone’s head.

That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t still show up in her nightmares.

Jiwoo sent one more worried glance back at the laboratory before making her way to the extraction point. She just had to trust that her team had it handled.

The wait for the others was harrowing, and she spent the time kneeling in an out of the way alley, muscles tensed in anticipation. If she got any sort of signal that the others had failed, she was expected to extract herself from the situation and return to the compound.

Jiwoo let out a small sigh of relief when she saw the others return, limping and injured but alive and uncrippled.

They were picked up by a black van and driven back to the compound to report back and lick their wounds.

The report was uncomfortable, with most of the group doing their best to concentrate through the pain.

It would be too nice of them to let them take care of their wounds first.

After the report, they were allowed to make use of their medical supplies. They had to tend to their wounds themselves, and so Jiwoo had gotten good at stitching the others up over the years. That and keeping things clean, as infection tended to be dealt with by being sent to the medical center.

And those that got sent to the medical center never came back.

They called it decommissioning. When one of their tools broke past the point of fixing, they were let go.

The part where they killed you and disposed of the body was more implied.

Jiwoo cleaned out a cut on Sooyoung’s side from what might have been the corner of a sharp-edged table judging by the jaggedness of the edges. She locked eyes with Sooyoung and mouthed a promise to her.

_Soon._

Soon they’d leave this behind. The pain and fighting, the punishments and standards, everything they’ve been forced into for so long.

That night in bed, Jiwoo reached out a hand from her bed to Sooyoung’s, lightly clasping her fingers. 

It was a signal for them to run the programs to loop the cameras and unlock the handcuffs, but it was also one of the few times she was able to touch someone and not cause pain. It was… a relief.

But when the two of them stood up to leave, they weren’t the only ones awake.

Chaewon was sitting up on her cot, already fully dressed and determined. The hard set to her mouth didn’t look right on her face. 

She signed that she was leaving as well, with or without them. Sooyoung and Jiwoo shared a reluctant glance but became more convinced when Chaewon pulled a significant amount of money, clothes, and easily liquidated goods seemingly out of nowhere.

They signaled for Chaewon to follow them, not noticing the mournful look that she shot at Hyejoo’s sleeping body.

The three girls took off, slipping out of the compound and taking Jiwoo’s stash with them.

They had only taken a few steps off of the grounds when the alarms began to blare.

Someone had caught them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> pls tell me what else to write here or just, in general, i need instruction to do things. uh i'm runnin out of stuff so just tell me what u think of the fic so far.


	3. no garden of eden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> new lives are made from the wake of eden.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> you get a roommate, you get a roommate, everyone gets a roommate!

Chaewon whipped her head back, noticing a lone figure on the balcony looking down at them.

Hyejoo.

She looked angry, but there was a tilt to her mouth that spoke more of pain than rage.

If only she had been brave enough to talk to her properly, Hyejoo could have been out running from the compound with them, but no.

Chaewon had left her to the wolves. Alone.

She felt a tear trickle down her cheek, something that she hadn’t allowed herself to do in years. She didn’t have time to cry.

They were running as fast as they could.

Sooyoung had hotwired a car and left it just out of range of the compound’s sensors. 

As long as they could get to it, they were free. Or at least they had some hope of being free.

It would take at least a few minutes for most of the people in the compound to be awake and alert enough to mobilize a force to take them down. They ran as quickly as they could, pulling open the doors of the car and flinging themselves in.

Sooyoung started the car, speeding away without bothering to make sure that everyone was inside the car properly.

Chaewon was sprawled in the back seat, door still open, and Jiwoo was holding on to the car door for dear life, having only made it a step into the car before Sooyoung had taken off.

Luckily her door slammed shut itself due to the speed they were going and how rough the ride was, and Jiwoo managed to throw herself properly into the car.

As soon as they were hopefully far enough away from the compound that they had time to switch cars, Sooyoung pulled into a parking lot.

“Get out.”

Only taking a second to find a suitable replacement, Sooyoung ushered them into a new car and sped off.

Chaewon was seated properly this time, so she was able to actually look around and take in the world outside of the Eden Project’s compound.

The buildings were tall, growing upwards rather than outwards as the compound had. There were lights everywhere, advertising products and illuminating storefronts. She had seen these things on missions and in photos, but being able to experience them freely was much different.

Everything was new to her, as if she had stepped into an alternate universe instead of simply traveling five miles east.

All of a sudden, Sooyoung pulled over sharply.

“We won’t have much luck getting away any further than we are, but if we settle down here, we’ll have to change up our looks.” Sooyoung said, “You two are bleaching your hair.”

Chaewon’s eyes widened and her hands flew to her scalp. “You mean… blonde?”

“Sure.”

Chaewon walked out of the gas station bathroom with bleached-blonde hair and an ill-fitting dress. She tugged it down ineffectively, before giving up and heading over to the others.

Sooyoung had her hair up in a ponytail and had on round glasses, and Jiwoo had bleached and dyed her hair to an orange color. Both of them looked cute and a little less recognizable, but Chaewon continued to worry.

Cheap disguises would hardly fool the Eden Project if they had some of the other trainees, or Hyejoo come after them. Hyejoo especially.

She felt a sense of deep regret and longing wash over her thinking of the other girl.

Chaewon was snapped out of her thoughts by Jiwoo, who had pulled out a couple of phones and a paper that had several phone numbers on it.

“We need to get another phone, but luckily I was still debating between a few rooms to rent so that won’t be a problem,” Jiwoo started, “To be safe, we’ll all room with different people. If they’re looking for us, they’ll start by looking for us in a group, so it’s best not to be.”

Jiwoo directed them to their respective roommates, who she had apparently been communicating with. Not wanting to do something so juvenile as a coin flip, Jiwoo had decided to just split them up by age.

Sooyoung was rooming with a girl named Kim Hyunjin, Jiwoo was with one Kim Jungeun, and Chaewon was the third roommate to a Choi Yerim and an Im Yeojin.

The thought of having to interact as if she had the same experiences as most people worried her. They had been given lessons on infiltration and undercover missions, but this would hopefully be long-term.

And there was only so much that she could fake.

All of the clothes, toiletries, and generally useful items that they had were already separated into three duffel bags, and so after they picked up a cheap used phone for Chaewon, they separated.

She walked into the apartment building apprehensively and chose to take the stairs up to her new apartment. By the time she reached the door, she could make out muffled shouting and crashing.

Fearing for the worst, that the Eden Project had already found her and her new roommates were being tortured or killed, she opened the door and burst in.

Two girls stared at her in surprise, pillows clutched in their hands.

To her surprise and relief, the scene that she burst in was just a pillow fight and not an unofficial paramilitary organization murdering innocent people.

She was almost too caught up in her relief to remember that she had just barged in on her new roommates for no reason.

“I’m so sorry! I thought something was happening,” Chaewon blushed and bowed her head, “I’m your new roommate. Park Chaewon.”

The shorter of the two leaped off the couch from where she had been positioned to strike and physically dragged Chaewon into the room properly.

“Hi! I’m Yeojin!” she said, releasing Chaewon’s arm once she was fully inside, “And this is Yerim!”

Yerim waved. 

Yeojin went around the small apartment, pointing out all of the things that Chaewon might need to know when living there. There wasn’t too much, as the apartment only held a few rooms.

“Here’s the living room, that’s the kitchen, there’s the bathroom, that’s your room…” she pointed out, hesitating slightly on the last, “And that’s Yerim and my room. You’re okay with that right? Your friend said that you’d be cool with it, but you never know.”

“Cool with what?”

Yerim came up behind Yeojin, wrapping her arms around the other girl’s waist and resting her chin on her shoulder. “The fact that we’re dating? I don’t know where you’re coming from, but here we tend to at least get odd looks.”

Chaewon had practically forgotten about that. In the program, they had been trained for the possibility of missions in which one would have to seduce someone, and gender and sexuality were things that the organization didn’t care about.

Or rather they repressed any sort of sexuality from their trainees in order to produce killing machines that were without any pesky emotions.

Chaewon knew that she preferred girls, but only in theory because she had betrayed the only girl that she had ever had the possibility of loving.

But instead of saying that out loud, she just smiled and responded with a cheerful, “It’s fine with me! I actually like girls too.”

The two others shared a look of relief. Yeojin looked back at her and frowned, eyebrows scrunching up. “Is that all you have?”

Chaewon tilted her head in confusion and then looked at her bag. She nodded shyly. 

“We’ll have to take you shopping soon then,” Choerry declared. It didn’t seem as if she would take no for an answer, so Chaewon just nodded again.

She dragged her duffle bag into her new room and sat down on the bed. It was far too soft for her body, too used to the hard mattresses on the cots of the compound.

She pulled the blankets off of the bed and piled them on the floor in a makeshift nest. The events of the past day and a half had left her too exhausted to do anything more about the mattress situation.

Chaewon curled up in the mess of blankets and went to sleep. As her mind drifted off, she had one last thought before her consciousness left her fully.

_How is Hyejoo doing?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i really wanted to write yeojin/yerim cause it's fun and i don't like having any one person left out of the shipping that goes on. also it doesn't feel weirs because even the maknae like is older then me lmao (not by much). But there won't be like, explicit content here cause i don't like writing porn about actual people. not judging any1 else cause i read that stuff sometimes but i myself can't do it.


	4. in the deep darkness

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this one's a lil longer to make up for the fact that i stopped writing for a while. also don't read this chapter if you don't like reading about torture n stuff because that's most of the chapter, just skip to the bottom notes i guess.

Hyejoo awoke with a shudder.

She was never fond of waking up in the morning, but this morning was far worse than all of the others.

With all of the others gone, Hyejoo knew that she would be held responsible for any small mistake made from that point on. Normally, any punishment would be split four ways (or five, when Viian was alive), but with only one left they would come down harder on her than ever before.

She dressed and stood in front of her cot, eyes lowered to the ground.

The inspection was over shortly, and she headed to the training grounds. As she walked she could feel the eyes of the other trainees on her, even as she did her best to ignore them.

But first, she had to take her punishment.

It wasn’t enough that her team members had left, but they had left her behind. She was outcasted even amongst the others, even amongst those who wanted to leave. She wasn’t good enough somehow, and now everyone knew it.

Hyejoo was intercepted before she got all the way to the training grounds, and was instead led to one of the smaller rooms off to the side of the building, far from the more populated areas.

Not everyone in the compound got off on the screams of people being tortured, after all. It made sense to put those rooms out of the way.

They wouldn’t damage her too badly. That was a bitter comfort, however.

That just meant that none of her injuries would be life-threatening, or impede her ability to fight too much.

The specialist started with her fingernails.

Her fingertips would ache for the next few months or so that it would take for her nails to grow back, but the gloves of her suit had their own nails, making up for the lack of any actual ones. It was logical, but hard to rationalize when your fingernails were being peeled off one by one.

Hyejoo bit her lip to keep from screaming, splitting her lip but not relenting, sucking her bloody lip into her mouth rather than letting anyone hear any sign of weakness from her.

Taking her from the chair, Hyejoo was forced to remove the top portion of her jumpsuit and face the other way.

She could hear the rasping drag of the cat o’ nine tails on the ground behind her and held back a shudder.

She wasn’t fully sure if it was the cold or the anticipation that caused her skin to break out into goosebumps, only that there was nothing she could do about it.

The whip drew back swiftly, and Hyejoo could only tense her muscles in expectation as the tails of the whip bit into her skin.

“Count the strikes.”

The next hit cracked solidly across the middle of her back.

“Two.”

She could feel the welts rising on her back, stinging and layering over the bruises and lines that had already been created.

“Three.”

She bit down another whimper and spat out the mouthful of blood that came with it.

“Four.”

The strength of the strikes began to steadily increase.

“Five.”

The hit struck to the side, stinging the new untouched flesh painfully.

“Six.”

A sheen of sweat covered Hyejoo, matting her hair down and sticking to her face.

“Seven.”

It was all she could do to just keep herself upright, bracing her forearms against the chair.

“Eight.”

There was a light trickle of blood dripping from her back to the floor.

“Nine.”

Hyejoo counted the drops of her own blood falling to the floor, using any distraction to keep from focusing on the overwhelming pain.

“Ten.”

She could tell through the tears in her eyes that the specialist was grudgingly impressed by her composure. Punishments tended to either be much less harsh or death, and so the woman obviously hadn’t gone as far in a while.

“We’re done here.” The older woman said, pausing in hesitation hefore handing her a small tub of cream.

Hyejoo took it, eyebrows wrinkling in confusion.

“For the pain. It’s mainly aloe vera, but it might help with scarring too.”

She nodded gratefully and pulled the jumpsuit lightly over her shoulders, wincing as it aggravated her wounds, and left the room.

Hyejoo quickly made her way towards the nearest showers, washing the blood from her back and disinfecting her whole back. 

She started treating her wounds by covering the parts that bled with bandages, using butterfly bandages on the thinner cuts. Worried about possible micro-tears that she wasn’t able to see led to her just spraying liquid bandage all over her back to seal anything in. 

She’d inevitably have to take it all off and clean everything out, but for the moment she was able to get on with her life.

Unfortunately, her life was a balancing act between pain and more pain.

Which meant that she would have to prove herself again. And again. And again.

Without the other girls to rely on, she’d have to prove her superiority over all of the other girls in the compound. By way of trial by hand to hand combat.

Luckily there were only a few groups on base at the time, most away on missions. On the other hand, unlike the face of the Eden Project, the other groups had far more members.

Hyejoo’s group had only ever been referred to as Eden or the “New DNA”, as they were the first actual group made. The others had been given actual names, but Hyejoo preferred not really having a name to some of them.

Being named after the group was better than being called something a ridiculous as “(G)I-DLE” which was impossible to spell, “NATURE”, which was far too cutesy for trained assassins, or “fromis_9” which sounded more like a computer error than a name.

So, of course, those were the ones that Hyejoo had to fight.

NATURE was the easiest group overall to beat. They were the ones who spent the most time infiltrating other countries and creating a network of allies for the project, which meant that they were rustier when it came to fighting.

(G)I-DLE were similar in that their talents for sabotage were useless, as were their proclivities for long-range weaponry.

fromis_9 could have been a problem, but they were still rookies. They were still working on honing their skills and had just recently settled on a specific area of expertise.

Demolitions.

Hyejoo was somewhat confused as to why they decided to challenge her for her precarious position at the top when she was the only one there with actual skills in hand-to-hand combat.

Probably because after her punishment, she would be at her weakest.

But fighting while injured just made her wilder, more like a cornered animal than a human. She would fight as hard as she could right up until the moment she succumbed and died.

If they had just wanted her knocked off of the top, they could have just waited for H.U.B to be done with their mission. If anyone was going to knock Hyejoo off in close combat it would probably be Hyosun.

But Hyosun was away and Hyejoo continued to reign supreme.

But her throne was made of glass, and every move she made brought her ever so closer to breaking it.

She took a second, perfunctory, shower after she finished her fights, wincing at the new bruises that covered her entire body. With Jiwoo gone, she’d have to handle all of her injuries herself.

When she exited the shower, there was an instructor outside waiting for her.

“The Headmistress would like to see you in her office.”

“Thank you,” Hyejoo said with a short bow.

She walked towards the office at a brisk pace, not wanting to be late even without an actual deadline for getting there.

“Son Hyejoo.”

Hyejoo knelt down in front of the Headmistress’ desk, waiting for instructions or at least some sign that she wasn’t about to be executed.

She likely wouldn’t. They wouldn’t waste the time of their main torturer just to kill her prey only hours later.

But that didn’t stop her from her fear.

“It’s such a pity. You are such a good agent, but you failed to prevent the others on your team from leaving.”

She sucked in a small breath, more anticipatory than relieved. “I won’t fail you again, Headmistress.”

“You know what you’re going to have to do. Your next task is to hunt down your former team members.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tldr; hyejoo is sad, she gets tortured, fights a bunch of rookie girl groups (fellow assassin teams) to keep her position at the top, the headmistress assigns her a mission: to hunt down her former team.
> 
> uh don't blame me for doing that whole bit with my fave rookies i put (g)i-dle in there for fun bc they're like the most favorite or whatevs but also watch nature's pop cover series and also hyosun was my favorite on the unit and idk i was listening to fromis_9. 
> 
> feel free to comment what you want to happen bc my entire script for this is just ramblings


	5. wandering deeper into memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jungeun and friends do things and there is surprisingly zero angst.

Jungeun looked at her new roommate with suspicion. “Are you, like, Amish or something?”

“I- my parents didn’t let me use the internet?” Jiwoo said, nervously, “And I went to a private boarding school.”

“Damn. Well, now I feel like I have to teach you about everything there is to know,” she said and then hesitated, “You don’t even know memes?”

When Jiwoo shook her head, Jungeun let out a cry and dramatically let her head drop to the table.

“Hey, do you at least follow the crime-fighting community?”

“The what?”

“Y’know,” Jungeun said, “The people that are on the news all the time just duking it out in superhero costumes at like, laboratories and shit?”

Jiwoo decided that a good response would just be waving a hand to indicate a so-so knowledge of said groups, but regretted it when Jungeun decided that it meant that she needed to be fully educated.

“There are like, whole reddit threads about who they are and what they need these materials for, but I just like to follow the fights,” Jungeun said, motioning to a youtube video of one of said fights. 

On the screen was two groups of girls, easily divided based on their suits, one group having more tactical, mostly black suits while the other group had what amounted to pastel catsuits.

“These ones are called 1/3, and people have taken to calling the others yyxy. Not really sure why, but it’s still pretty cool,” Jungeun said before scrolling down and clicking on another video, “And these three are the Odd Eye Circle.”

“What’s the difference?” Jiwoo asked. Even if she knew technical information, it was always good to get an alternate opinion.

“Well, if you go by some of those old superhero comics ‘n shit, yyxy would be villains, the OEC would be, like, vigilantes, and 1/3 would be the heroes.”

There were a few beats of silence before a burst of sound filled the air, ringing out from Jungeun’s phone. She looked apologetically at Jiwoo, mumbling out a short, “I’ve gotta take this,” before heading out the door.

“What do you want Jinsol? I’m with my roommate right now.” She complained. It wasn’t that she didn’t like Jinsol, she was just… busy.

“Ah, sorry! I didn’t know you were doing anything.”

“Haseul? Nah, it’s fine! How are you?”

“Good, good. I was just wondering if you wanted to come over for a study session?”

“I- yeah, sure! Let me tell my roommate not to wait up for me first though.

Haseul greeted her at the door with a pencil behind her ear and bags under her eyes. 

“I’m so glad you’re here, I’ve been trying to figure out differential equations and you’re good at math right?” She pulled Jungeun through the doorway, “I can help you with English in return if you want!”

To be honest, Jungeun hadn’t actually expected to be studying. Isn’t that always the line? Right under Netflix and Chill was the “study date” that actually meant making out for hours.

But since Haseul apparently actually wanted to study, she’d buckle down and work.

“Oh, I invited Jinsol too. I hope you don’t mind.”

“It’s fine, she just keeps hitting on me. It’s… weird.”

“You’re not like, homophobic, right?”

Jungeun turned around and stared at Haseul with a deadpan look on her face.

“Haseul… I’ve been flirting with you for three years now. The first time we met I was wearing a rainbow sequined ‘Love Wins’ shirt. How the hell did you get the impression that I was straight.”

It wasn’t exactly a question, more just an expression of sheer disbelief.

Haseul stared at her blankly for a second, before vocalizing a small “Ah,” and turning back to her homework.

They sat in silence for another few minutes before the door slammed open and Jinsol fell face-first onto the floor.

She pushed herself up with her forearms and groaned, “I didn’t know the door was open.”

“It… wasn’t. How the hell did you do that?”

“I’m just. Supremely talented.”

Instead of settling down and doing work, Jinsol got up only to sprawl over her and Haseul’s laps.

“I don’t wanna do work. I thought that this was just a weird excuse to have a threesome.”

“Why would we be having a threesome?” Haseul asked, and Jungeun coincidentally looked the other way.

“I dunno, we’re all hot and gay? That’s all I really need.”

“Jinsol, you’re bi.”

“Yeah? That doesn’t mean I can’t be gay.”

“Fair,” Jungeun replied, but then paused, “Are you gonna get off of our laps any time soon?”

“Nah.”

They didn’t get much studying done after that, but Haseul still ended up looking much more relaxed than she had been.

Jungeun walked back into the apartment and hung her coat on the back of the door. She turned around with a greeting, only to cut herself off at the sight of the other half of the room.

Jiwoo stood in front of her bed looking sheepish. Behind her was a surprisingly large collection of posters considering the fact that Jungeun was only away for a few hours.

The other surprising part was that they were all of the leader of yyxy, who some had dubbed Yves.

“You’ve… betrayed me.”

“Eh?” Jiwoo’s head tilted to the right at a 45 degree angle.

“I’m an OEC stan.”

“What’s a stan?”

“It’s just like, a really big fan. Don’t worry about it. But Yves of all the members of yyxy?”

“Yes. Yves. That’s her name”

Jungeun looked at her strangely, but brushed it off. “So, why her?”

“She- pretty.” Jiwoo blushed, as if she weren’t the one saying such things.

“She pretty.”

Jiwoo actually paused for a second, looking as if she were going to change her statement into something coherent, but she gave up and just shrugged.

“Yeah.”

“Mood. Well, at least we’re both lesbians in this house.”

“Gay Power!”

“Fuckin’ superb you funky little lesbian,” Jungeun grinned, “Wait, you don’t even know that one. God, we have to give you a crash-course on like, all pop culture.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> tbh i wrote this at 2 AM and barely edited so this is what you're getting. also the OEC chapters will probably all be pretty cracky but we'll get some action next chapter. p sure 1/3's chapters will be more angsty, but like... relationship wise.
> 
> also lippie's just a tsundere she gay for jinsol too
> 
> uh request stuff if u want things to happen but i got some shit written already


	6. hidden secret from your heart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Odd Eye Circle learns new things about this world they live in

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> support zgirls they deserve it. that's where vanya is from btw, they might not really be kpop but they're cute n i'm gay. also sorry this is like all dialogue

Jinsol’s phone rang from where it was smothered underneath her pillow. “H’lo?” She muttered sleepily into the screen.

“Thank god you answered, I’ve called you three times! There’s an incident down in the tunnels.”

“The ones with the-”

“The ones we call the portal to hell, yeah.”

“Thanks, Yerim. C’n always count on you to find us the worst jobs.”

Jinsol yawned again but stood up and got dressed anyway. The Odd Eye Circle were technically vigilantes, but they also served as problem solvers for anyone that paid them.

Between the three of them, none of them made enough money to survive, really, so they were all on board with doing odd jobs to make the rent.

Unfortunately, that meant that they ended up in a variety of weird situations, from the one time they had to go ghost hunting and found a weird vampire instead to the  

And so they were trudging through a dirty sewer in the hopes of finding what was apparently a mutated animal of some sort. Jinsoul just hoped that it wasn’t an alligator. That would suck.

“I swear to god, you’ll get us killed someday,” she moaned, still half-asleep.

“That’s exactly what you said about the hidden pathway behind those bushes last week!” said Jungeun, suited up as Kim Lip and looking far too enthusiastic.

“Yeah, and?”

“ _And_ that turned out fine!”

“ _And_ I nearly stabbed you because you ran at me when I was carrying around a knife!”

“Why were you carrying around a knife anyway?”

“Because Choerry told me that there might be like, crazy people living in there!”

“But there weren’t!”

“But there could have been!”

“Whatever. We’re fine.”

“Lippie. What the fuck is that.”

“That- yeah we’re fucked.”

 _That_ was a massive creature, which, to Jinsoul’s dismay, looked fairly similar to an alligator.

Jinsoul turned, completely done with their whole Scooby-Doo-but-the-monsters-are-real schtick, and made to run away. Instead of just, y’know, letting her, Kim Lip put her in a headlock, nearly singing her hair with the lasers she was shooting.

“Watch the hair!” Jinsoul whined, giving up on running and focusing on getting Kim Lip to take down the monster before she had to do any work herself.

“Jindori, use your water powers, we’re in a fucking sewer!”

“But isn’t the alligator a water-type?”

“This isn’t Pokemon, just hit it with a bunch of that trash water!”

Jinsoul gave up on arguing and pulled the water out of the, well, liquid, lobbing a big ball of water at the thing’s head. It thrashed and roared, but it was mostly unaffected.

“Told you, water type.”

Maybe if Jinsoul had like, liquid powers instead of water powers, a stray boot or something would have gotten caught in it and knocked the creature out. But all she could do was water, which meant that it was H2O exclusive.

Kim Lip finally managed to score a glancing blow against the beast’s head, knocking it unconscious. But as the monster fell, it began to shrink, turning into a girl. At that moment, Choerry popped in. Of course, she only appeared after they had done all the dirty work.

“What’s going on here?” she asked, puzzled, “Who’s she?”

“She,” Jinsol proclaimed, “Is our sewer creature.”

Choerry teleported them all back to Jinsol’s place, before popping back out to go haggle over payment with whoever had hired them.

The shapeshifter girl slept. For a really long time. Kim Lip probably should have put a little less force in that beam.

Jinsol was still waiting at their guest’s bedside when she woke.

“We’re not going to torture you kid. I just kinda wanna know like, who are you? Where’d you get your powers from? Why the hell were you in a sewer?”

“Like you don’t know, with powers like that.” she said, in fairly accented Korean. She did look foreign, maybe Indonesian? Jinsol didn’t know.

“What do you mean?”

“I got my powers the same way everyone else does-”

“Getting hit by electricity while making a blood pact?”

“What?”

“That’s what happened to us. Well, we were also super stoned at the time…” Jinsol shrugged.

It was in the past, before Yerim had told them her age and they felt like they had to be responsible for her and keep her away from drugs. Not that they did that much, but it was high school, y’know?

“So… you really don’t have any relation to like, the government, or y’know, the Eden Project?”

“The what?”

“Fuck. You guys really are just civilians. Okay, quick breakdown. Eden project: Corrupt, experiments on children to like, take over the world or something. The government does basically the same thing, but they want to protect the country or something. Also their program is more volunteer-based.” she rattled off, barely taking the time to breathe.

“So which are you?”

“I _was_ a part of the Indonesian government’s program, but on one of my first missions I was captured and ‘re-educated’ by the Eden Program.” she said, looking a mix between ashamed and furious, “I was put on a team of other girls- They’re still in there.”

“Will they be coming after you? Cause our apartment isn’t that up for protecting anybody, and we kinda don’t even know your name.”

“It’s Zhavanya Meidi. Vanya. And I can find my own place. I stored some cash outside Indonesia as a just-in-case, so I’ll be using that.”

“Thank god. Yer- Choerry’s full up with two roommates and Lippie just got one, and I’m in no way ready to share my space for longer than 24 hours. Also I’m afraid of alligators.”

“Wow, thanks.”

“No offense?”

“None taken.”

Jinsol let her leave the next morning, once she had rested up enough to be able to go out safely.

Only two hours later did she regret her choice, when Jungeun asked after the girl that she had taken in. Jungeun wasn’t as fine with an extremely bare-bones explanation as Jinsol was, and berated her for letting Vanya leave without any more extensive questioning.

“Don’t worry Jungie, everything will be fine. And we won’t have to deal with any of it!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> give me ideas if you want stuff in the story, also i might be starting a loona ship blog @loonamultishipping on tumblr so hmu if u want that to be active


	7. our story starts today

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Choerry meets the rest of the Z-girls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> lmao there's more z-girls i like them tho. i might throw in sum clc and pristin in the mix later... (stream me by clc also rip pristin) uhhh, thx @girlfront for getting me to continue lol

Yerim collapsed onto their couch, exhausted. “Jinsol’s stupid,” she mumbled into the cushion where her head had landed. Yeojin laughed at her, pushing her legs out of the way so she could sit down, repositioning Yerim’s body so that her head was in her lap.

“What happened this time?”

“We took down someone who was wreaking havoc in the sewers, and she’s apparently part of some kind of shady operation.”

“And what happened?”

“Jinsol let her go.”

“Just, let her walk away?”

“Yup.”

“Damn, that sucks for you.”

“So, you’ve heard my woes. What’s going on with you?”

“Well, Haseul has just now realized that Jungeun has been hitting on her, and now she’s re-evaluating her entire life. Also she still hasn’t realized that the kinda-superhero Jinsoul is Jung Jinsoul, which still fucks with my mind because she literally hasn’t even changed her name.”

“Yeah, how is it that we’re the only ones who know all of their identities? They’re pretty obvious if you, y’know, think for a second. At least I changed my name.”

“So did I!”

“Yeah, but everyone just calls you ‘That Frog Girl’ anyway.”

Yeojin pouted, throwing herself to the side to land on top of her girlfriend, pushing Yerim to the edge of the couch. Yerim grunted in pain and grabbed a throw pillow that she tried to hit Yeojin with, but she missed badly.

Giving up, Yerim went to put on the television but immediately shut it off when the first snippet of words that she was met with was “Odd Eye Circle’s Choerry switches up her signature pigtails-”.

Yerim tugged on said ponytails distractedly, eyes still fixed on the now-blank screen.

“Do you think I should dye my hair?”

“What color?”

“I’m thinking...purple. To go with my whole theme, y’know?”

“Won’t that be pretty obvious though? If anyone who knows you sees that you’ve dyed your hair right when Choerry has, and it’s the same color, and you look the same…”

“Damn. I guess I could get a wig instead, and wear that as Choerry.”

“You’d have to secure it pretty tightly in order to fight while doing that though. Lots of bobby pins?”

“Yeah…”

Yerim’s phone suddenly blared out an alarm, startling the two girls enough that Yeojin nearly tumbled off of the couch.

The alarm was an emergency measure that she had gotten a client to put into the phones of all of Odd Eye Circle (and her girlfriend, not that Jinsol or Jungeun knew that) so that they’d have a specific red alert meant for OEC emergencies.

Jinsol still hadn’t really figured out that system apparently, as she had somehow slept through the alarm yesterday, so it must have been Jungeun setting the alarm.

And Jungeun wouldn’t set off the alarm for just anything.

Yerim pressed a quick kiss to Yeojin’s cheek before quickly changing into her costume, pulling up the coordinates that Jungeun had sent and teleporting as close as she could to there.

Choerry still wasn’t great at teleporting to places she didn’t actually know, so she would often just jump as close as she could and then make jumps based on her line of sight from there.

Choerry slowed her pace as she came upon the scene, finding less of an emergency and more of just Kim Lip and six costumed girls having a hushed conversation. As she neared the group, she could see Kim Lip moving them away from the public areas and herding them into a nearby alleyway.

“Look,” Kim Lip was saying, “Your friend Vanya- she’s safe, said she had some money saved up. If you guys can find her that’d be good, but my apartment can’t fit all of you at once.” She looked around quickly, spotting Choerry and sighing with relief.

“We’ll have to split you into apartments between us,” Kim Lip continued to Choerry’s displeasure. Her apartment was barely big enough for three as it was.

“I can only fit one more person in my apartment. Why don’t we ask any of 1/3?” Choerry pouted.

Kim Lip rolled her eyes. “They’d never agree, especially because we’d have to know their secret identities for that to work. You know those government types, they like, legally can’t do that.”

“But… I know their identities.”

“What?”

“How do you think I sent them Vivi?”

“That’s where she went?”

“Seriously? We save a girl and inadvertently turn her into a cyborg, and they get a new, android member the next week, and you didn’t connect that?” Choerry  bitched at Kim Lip, “How stupid are you?”

“Oh shit, that makes sense. You think they’d agree?”

“It’s our best bet.”

Choerry flipped up the burner phone that she used for superhero business and dialed one of the few numbers that she had on there. Haseul picked up after a few rings.

“Mind coming down and picking up a few baby ex-supervillains? They need a place to stay for a bit before the last member of their group picks them up, and I know most of your girls have room.”

“Fine,” Haseul agreed, voice dropping down into her ‘Leader’ persona, “But you owe me one.”

“Ugh okay. But bring the others too!”

“I shouldn’t bring Vivi though… I doubt her apartment even has food. And Hyunjin has a roommate already...”

“I guess you and Heeki are getting three new roommates each! Thankyoubye!” Choerry hung up before Haseul could complain, turning back to the group instead.

They only had to wait a few minutes before Haseul pulled up in her car, a big, hulking thing that Hyunjin had once dubbed the Mom-mobile. It would fit 8 people, not including Choerry and Kim Lip, so Choerry figured that it was useful, but god was it ugly.

The car puttered merrily away once it was filled to the brim with girls, leaving Choerry and Kim Lip to take the short way back to their apartments, i.e. having Choerry teleport them.

Choerry dreaded what would happen next, given that so many things had started happening all of a sudden, and they didn’t seem like they’d stop.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm gay and i take advice
> 
> send me things you want in this story  
> no boy groups tho


End file.
